Djordje Padejski had just entered college to study literature in 1996 when students launched months of protests against the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. As he continued his studies, Padejski also began working in independent media outlets, reporting on corruption and organized crime during the regime. In the years since, he has become one of Serbia’s leading investigative journalists. In 2006, his stories about organized crime and bird smuggling won the Serbian Award for Investigative Reporting from the joint committee of the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade and the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia. The following year, he started Serbia’s first center for investigative reporting, under the Independent Journalists’ Association, conducting training and overseeing investigative projects. And in 2008, he joined the Organized Crime and Corruption Project, working with the Center for Public Integrity on cross-border investigative projects in the Balkans: criminal organizations distributing cocaine, heroin and tobacco, and corruption in government and the oil and gas sectors.

The John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford foster journalistic innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership. Each year, we give up to twenty outstanding individuals from around the world the resources to pursue and test their ideas for improving the quality of news and information reaching the public.